Breakfast and Beyond

Dec 29, 2014 01:36AM
● Published by Family Features

A great day starts with a balanced breakfast filled with healthy ingredients fit for the whole family. Enticing the youngest family members to enjoy as many food groups as possible at the morning meal – including veggies – may be challenging, but it’s an important step to ensuring a well-rounded diet all day long.

The experts at Birds Eye frozen vegetables offer up these tips to get kids to eat more vegetables, starting with the breakfast table and continuing throughout the day.

1. Look for dining occasions for vegetables throughout the day, including breakfast. While veggies are often only thought of at dinnertime, parents can help ensure their kids get the proper amount of vegetables by combining Birds Eye frozen fruit and veggies into other meals and snacks, such as smoothies. These are a great start to the morning and an easy way to work in extra servings of fruits and vegetables. Another option is combining many ingredients, including veggies, into a single breakfast dish, such as the Baked Eggs with Peppers and Breakfast Sausage recipe below.

2. Whether frozen or fresh, it’s important to get veggies in every meal. Nine out of ten Americans don’t eat enough vegetables on a daily basis, so incorporating them into each meal is important. From a nutritional perspective, there is little to no difference between fresh and frozen vegetables. For example, at Birds Eye, they flash freeze their veggies within four hours after harvest, locking in peak freshness, nutrients, taste and color. Easy to store in the freezer, they make it a snap to have nutritious ingredients on hand for any meal.

3.Mix up the veggie and flavor profiles to keep meals exciting.It’s easy to become bored with the same meals or flavors, so mix up mealtime. Birds Eye offers more than 40 unique vegetable varieties year round at affordable prices, allowing families to change up their meals regardless of the season.

With a little creativity, you will have the kids in your family eating more vegetables at every meal, beginning with breakfast.

For more recipes and veggie-friendly tips for your family, visit www.birdseye.com.

Baked Eggs with Peppers and Breakfast Sausage

Ingredients

6 ounces breakfast sausage (if links, remove from casing)

1/2 bag Birds Eye Recipe Ready Tri Color Pepper & Onion Blend

4 large eggs

Salt and ground black pepper

1/4 cup whole milk or heavy cream

1/2 cup shredded Monterey Jack cheese

Chopped fresh parsley for garnish

Preparation

Brown sausage over medium heat in nonstick skillet, stirring and breaking up sausage, about 5 minutes. Stir in peppers and onions and cook, stirring occasionally, 5 minutes or until vegetables are tender.

Evenly divide vegetable mixture among prepared ramekins.

Gently break one egg into each ramekin and season with salt and pepper. Evenly top each egg with milk and cheese.

Place ramekins on baking sheet. Bake 10-12 minutes or until egg white is opaque but yolk is still soft.